The Feast at Vaientaa
by Generation Extant
Summary: The Doctor, Colleen, and Russell travel to a planet without sound and get involved in the mysterious monk's murder. (This story was originally published from October 7-November 11, 2009 at Generation Extant dot com.)


The three stepped out of the TARDIS onto immaculate, polished floors of white that gleamed like marble. In fact, all around them was white, gleaming white, almost surgical. Massive, fluted columns shot up to a dizzying height, forming an Gothic alabaster canopy above their heads. Looking down, the hallways seemed to stretch on forever in similar endless white and, looking closer still, it appeared that they: Russell Garamond, Colleen Ciradh, and the strange man known as the Doctor, were all represented by black, white, and varying shades of gray. Russell whirled around to look at the TARDIS, convinced that the old, familiar time machine would be its customary blue hue, but alas, it to was gray. As Russell turned back around, he noticed Colleen having much the same reaction. Russell opened his mouth to ask the Doctor exactly what was going on.  
No words came out.  
It wasn't that Russell couldn't breathe, or couldn't feel the proper apparatus in his throat make the sounds for speaking, it was just…silent. As if all the sound was smothered out of the world and, try as he might, Russell wouldn't be able to change that. He felt himself yell, stamp his feet, even bang on the TARDIS door… but still, nothing. No sound, and no color.  
Just what was going on here?  
He made his way to the Doctor, who was now several paces down the hall, in hopes of uncovering the answer. Forcibly, if necessary. Before he had a chance to get a hand on the portly man, the Doctor threw up an index finger with a look of mild aggravation. Russell stopped in his tracks, for no other reason than he had seen what havoc the Doctor could wreak with that hand before. A simple finger might paralyze him. Using his free hand, with the other still outstretched, the Doctor began digging into the pocket of the tuxedo jacket he was wearing. They were all dressed to the nines, the Doctor had promised them a sumptuous banquet. His words, not Russell's.  
The Doctor dug and dug into the pocket, deeper and deeper, far past his wrist and gaining on his elbow, which would have seemed patently impossible if it was not the Doctor. His face told an entire story:  
no, not that one  
not what I'm looking for  
oh, I thought I'd lost that!  
might use that later…  
no  
no  
no  
I really should fix that one  
Wait…no  
almost…  
little further…  
and…  
THERE!  
Colleen was just making her way to Russell when the Doctor finally removed his entire arm from the jacket. The Irish girl's flouncy evening gown seemed to impede her progress, and she had originally frowned at the idea of such extravagance. Finally, through gentle coaxing from both the Doctor and Russell, she agreed to wear it, and looked absolutely stunning…even if she had had to eschew the high-heels after her third topple in the TARDIS wardrobe. The Doctor finally produced a small, worried looking scrap of leather which may at one point have been a billfold. He held it up and unfurled it, exposing a single piece of white paper. Russell shot the Doctor a look that fairly screamed "you really have lost it," but was forced to change his mind when the paper began writing on itself.  
"It's c–led psychic paper," the widget said, "It see- what you -ant to see."  
Unfortunately, the paper looked a little torn, so "want" was missing an "a." The paper soon corrected itself.  
"I don't use it much anym–e. It absorbed mo-t of the blow from a nasty blade on Q—-S."  
Again, a word was obscured. The Doctor looked at it, tapped it a few times, gave a sad little shrug and the paper carried on.  
"We are on the pl–et known as Vaientaa, on the far end of the Horsehead Ne-ula, about 2000 light-years from E–th."  
Russell folded his arms, obviously unimpressed with the geography lesson.  
"Why don't y-u try yellin- at me?"  
Russell blinked and looked at the Doctor. The strange little man simply tapped a finger to his head and gave a sly wink. He pulled his sonic screwdriver out of the breast pocket of his tuxedo, and positioned it in front of the psychic paper. The eerie gray light expanded the paper's message to the size of an artists' easel, making it easier to read. The paper continued.  
"Vaie–aa is a planet -f monks who have ta–n the most severe -ow of silence. Not only do they not s-eak, but n–ther does their monastery –anet. No sou-d is issued by a single pa–icle within its atmosphere. In the o-d days, it was simply agreed upon, but as tourism has increased, the monks cons–ucted a sonic damper that m-tes everything on the planet. –ditionally, it was decided that color was -inful, and di-tracting from their mission, and a sun filter was installed."  
Russell looked around, marveling at what he saw. It wasn't long, though, before he was called back to the Doctor and his funny paper by Colleen nervously tugging at his french-cuffed sleeve.  
"The-r mission i- a search for G-d."  
Russell again looked from the makeshift presentation screen to the Doctor, who merely nodded.  
"You might -hink having -pulen- banquets and tourist inc-me would -egate their pursuits," the paper displayed, "But it is the only way the monks of Va–ntaa can fur-her their s-arch."  
The Doctor turned off the screwdriver, and the screen vanished. He dropped the psychic paper back into his pocket, and Russell almost expected to hear it tumbling and crashing down the Doctor's literally deep pockets. However, it occurred to him that he wouldn't be hearing anything. This silence…it was almost maddening!  
The Doctor replaced his sonic screwdriver and did a little hitch step, extending the crook of his arm to Colleen. She gave a nervous look to Russell, who quickly interceded and took the Irish girl's arm. Undaunted, the Doctor slid effortlessly on the polished floor, his two tone spectator shoes gleaming as he took Colleen's other arm. Colleen's cheeks turned a darker shade of gray. The Doctor stuck a strong hand forward, proclaiming mutely.  
"On!"  
And the three continued down the hall. As they traveled, the massive, Gothic halls gave way to epic, arched windows. Outside, a simple black sky sparkled with countless stars, and three gray moons hovered near the horizon. They met up with a few other outsiders, some of whom had the prescience to hold signs with their names on them. The Doctor tried fishing for his psychic paper, but Russell stopped him before it began to look lewd. A smile and a kind gesture would work just as well. As they walked, Russell could see people going this way and that about their chores and lives, all dressed in simple black robes with smooth, featureless white masks. He even spotted some which appeared to be using some form of sign language, which was completely utilitarian and without flourish. Each encounter was met with and ended with a small bow with hands clasped, and as the three got closer to the equally stunning banquet hall they started to get the hang of it: moving the mouth toward the face for "food," making a large, expansive gesture for the banquet hall, and simply pointing in the correct direction. It all seemed to work well, but then again this was a world without luxury.  
…Until the meal was served.  
Gray it was, yes, and without sound, but taste and smell had not been affected. A good hundred paces from the banquet hall, Russell's mouth began to water, and the directions given by monks began to seem more and more irrelevant. The nose knew the way, and the stomach spurred them on. The silence was proving more and more frustrating, so Russell soothed it by singing the Rolling Stones in his head as much as possible. He was on the second chorus of "Get Off of My Cloud" when they entered the banquet hall.  
Spectacular. High, seemingly endless white ceilings with massive chandeliers adorned by countless white, flickering flames. Tables of black wood stretched for what looked like miles, polished to such a glimmering sheen that the candles shone twice. Monks bustled this way and that, setting up a feast that, although unappealing in color, smelled so wonderful as to be irresistible. Upon entering the room, both Colleen and Russell goggled at the scope of it, while the Doctor rummaged in his pockets again and pulled up a small silk purse, which he dropped, unclasped into the hand of a diminutive monk. The monk popped it open and, upon seeing the contents, began to wriggle with a pleasure that it dares not give a name to, lest it be sinful. Instead, it busied itself shooing the Doctor and his companions to a seat near front and center, obviously a spot of some significance. As the three still sat down, Russell and Colleen were shocked to see the cards at their seat immediately display their names:  
Dr. Russell Garamond, Physician.  
Chicago, Illinois, United States of America, Earth.  
Colleen Ciradh, homemaker  
Ireland, Earth.  
They both exchanged a look, and then looked to the Doctor who, with a cheeky smile, showed them his card, which read:  
"Where do you think I got the stuff from?"  
He set it back down onto the table, where it reverted to simply "The Doctor." Russell wanted to correct him on a few bits of information presented, but monks soon began whooshing this way and that, bringing out platters and trays and tureens and goblets and piles and piles and piles of the most delicious food you could have ever smelled.  
The Feast of Tisina had begun!

And what a feast it was.  
Russell had never seen such a collection of food. Fruits, vegetables, meats, cheeses, beverages, desserts and a few things he wasn't sure how to classify; all in as many different patterns and configurations and recipes, all smelling of absolute heaven, and all tasting like nothing he had ever had before. His Hippocratic Oath be damned, Russell swore that he'd keep eating whatever it was he was eating, whether it be animal, vegetable, mineral, opiate, former housepet, or anything else. He'd always heard the Doctor go on and on about the different foods and drinks of the galaxies, and as a rule he'd been polite and sampled a few, but nothing really seemed to supplant his childhood memories of Gulliver's pizza or Al's Italian Beef, or even the delicacies of Chinatown. Perhaps that made him a yokel as far as intergalactic cuisine was concerned, but he didn't care…until he had eaten from the Tisina banquet spread.  
It did take some getting used to, eating without sound or color, but Russell found that the food more than made up for it. As an added bonus, his belches and groans of ecstasy were completely unheard, allowing him full animal enjoyment of the meal. He hadn't eaten like this since college, it was like his stomach had no end. Perhaps color makes food more filling, he thought, but it really didn't seem to matter. He ascribed colors to food as he ate anyway: a roasted creature that tasted like beef was red, whereas the four-legged fowl he consumed he dubbed a roasted golden brown. The desserts were a cavalcade of color within his own imagination, and it was through this that Russell felt a freedom he thought he had forgotten long ago. His imagined world in the Earth-wide cyberspace had fallen apart, been insubstantial, but this…this was here and now, and this was real.  
He glanced to either side of him, and immediately felt a pig. Colleen was delicately picking apart her meal, methodically yet hungrily as her plate was fairly heaped with all manner of grayscale delights. To his left, the Doctor was taking a different tack, only taking one piece or serving at a time, fully cleaning his plate, then moving to another. His table manners were equally impeccable, and his name tag on the table was displaying food critiques and revelry so fast that Russell couldn't manage to read it. Feeling more than a little ashamed, Russell dabbed the corners of his mouth on a napkin and returned to more sensible eating. He had run out of Rolling Stones songs, he was halfway through the Beatles.  
Each time a platter was emptied, another was brought out. It was as if the food never ended. Finally, in the second chorus of "Octopus' s Garden" Russell had had enough. He leaned back and tried to moan, but naturally no sound came out. Instead, he simply tried best to meter his breathing. He wouldn't have to eat for a week, maybe longer. Soon after, the Doctor pushed his plate away and, as Colleen has finished some time before, the strange man beckoned for a monk to come by and clean the table. Then, finally, with their meal done, the trio sipped on their aperitif and relaxed in absolute silence. The silence was something Russell was not at all accustomed to: he had started life in the countryside, but soon move inwards, closer to Chicago, and the silence had died there. From Chicago it was off to Cambridge and the study of medicine, and then it was at his job in London. There was his first wife, and Lord knows she never kept quiet, and then there was the constant hustle and bustle of the emergency room, the trauma ward, or anywhere else his scalpel and hands were needed. Then one day, he met that strange little man and, well… things certainly weren't quiet with him around. But this…  
This wasn't the quiet Russell remembered from his childhood. The quiet in the country is a quiet of blowing wind and rustling grass, there was no such noise here at Vaientaa. To put it simply, there was nothing. Complete and utter silence. The planetwide sonic damper made sure that no sound was emitted and, coming from Earth, it was not something Russell was used to in the slightest. He tried to remember the last time he heard utter silence, and he couldn't. Morseo, he found the presence of utter silence to be rather upsetting. He couldn't even hear the beat of his own heart or the rush of his blood in his ears, which is something he always thought he'd be able to know. Even the songs he kept playing in his mind weren't really sounds, but rather memories of sounds, and it was almost as if they existed in spite of themselves, that he was creating a playlist to keep his ears from being unoccupied. Perhaps, he thought, in utter silence…a human being might go mad? He'll have to study that when he got back to Earth.  
And then he though of Earth. His life. His practice. Did he do the right thing, leaving the squalor and iniquity behind? Sure, his life had gotten better, but how many innocent people did he condemn because he removed himself from that time? Was he supposed to? Would some other surgeon take his place? Time was strange like that, especially when you find yourself removed from it. Russell beckoned for another monk to come and fill his glass as he tried to summon up the word to "O-bla-di, O-bla-da," but instead could only think of the melancholy strains from "Yesterday," and "Something." He resolved he didn't like this silence of Vaientaa.

Something in the way she moves  
Attracts me like no other lover  
Something in the way she woos me

And then there was Colleen. What could Russell do? He couldn't help it that he loved her, and he couldn't help resenting himself a bit for being so selfish. What was love to her, when half of her body was no longer human? What was love when she couldn't have children? What was love when she still woke up screaming one night out of five because the cybernetic devices in her brain programmed her terrible nightmares? No person was meant to live like that: half a loving, feeling human, and the other an emotionless machine. It tore Russell apart that, for all his medical knowledge, there was nothing he could do other than simply be there, and even that was not enough. She was silent, most of the time, awfully silent, horribly silent, because she didn't know what would happen if she spoke, or laughed, or cried, or loved…Russell resolved that he hated that silence, too.  
He was brought out of his reverie by a simple copper American penny clattering silently on the table in front of him. He glanced at his wristwatch: it had only been a few minutes since the plates had been swept away, but it had felt like hours of pondering and thinking. Again, this silence… it allowed for so much thought, but the thought seemed so unwanted. The Doctor held up the nametag at his seat.  
"Penny for your thoughts?"  
The strange man cocked an eyebrow. Russell sighed, but it felt empty when he couldn't hear it. He looked at his own card, which was listing a myriad of problems. He concentrated his gaze until a final sentiment appeared, which he showed the Doctor.  
"It's a little weird."  
The Doctor smiled and raised his glass. Russell did likewise and, at a nudge from the Doctor, had Colleen do the same. All three shared a silent toast. Suddenly, the psychic paper at their places began to display a blinking message.  
"Please return to your seats and remain. Father Abbot wishes to address the assembled."  
Russell didn't understand how anyone could have been able to tear themselves away from the fabulous food, but a few stragglers found their way back to the seats. Finally, all of the black-cloaked monks came to the center of the room and stood in two parallel lines. Through the high doors of the banquet hall walked another figure in black: this one was taller than the others, and seemed to compose itself with a grace that was straddled comic and reverent. The entire scene, robbed of all sound, could very well have looked like Keystone Capers, with monks whizzing this way and that to prepare the way for their abbot. If one had fallen down, Russell may not have been able to keep from laughing. Slowly but surely, with quiet, dignified grace that seemed undermined by the scurrying underlings, the Abbot made his way through the giant banquet hall, the way constantly cleared and each step monitored. The Abbot was at the far end of the elongated dining hall when he turned around, his face obscured like all the others. He unfolded his arms and words began to trickle onto the table cards:  
"Greetings, all, and welcome. Welcome to our celebration of Tisina, the most sacred time for the monks of Vaientaa. During the time of Tisina, our planet's three moons will pass in front of our three suns, and the entire world will be plunged into darkness. It is during that time, when all sight and sound is lost, that we shall truly worship, without pretense or agenda, in hopes of answering the questions of the universe. The generous donations given here tonight will further our cause and our research in the hopes that we may someday truly come to know and understand what is in control of the universe or reality. To some, it is a loving God. To others, a Great Consciousness. We on Vaientaa call Him Cisza. Thank you for allowing us to continue our most Holy of enterprises, and thank you for believing in our methods and purpose. We will not subjugate God, we will not seek to defeat the Great Consciousness, we do not seek to even see Cisza, simply to understand. Now, my newfound friends, the time draws nigh. Let us glance upon the perfect, serene grace of Tisina."  
The Abbot tilted his head up, and the crowd did likewise. In a trice, the bright, white ceilings seemed to dissolve, and the candles to snuff themselves, giving them a shockingly clear vision of the sky. The three moons Russell had seen earlier, impossibly large, made their way to the sky's zenith, where three suns burned white hot and glaring to the eye. With each passing moment, the moons grew closer and closer, causing shadows to fall bit by bit. Russell tore his gaze away for a brief moment and saw shadow ebbing and flowing like water, closing over the entire assembled gathering, the entire world. He began to worry, to panic, but he saw the Doctor standing, firm and unbothered, and took heart. At last, the three moons covered the three suns and Tisina had come.  
There was no light. There was no sound. There was only thought.  
Russell Garamond was not a religious man. He had seen far too many dead children, far too many young women with inoperable tumors and gurgling toddlers, far too many amputees with dreams of running marathons and morbidly obese men with no regard for their own health. He was not entirely convinced that a God even existed, no matter the name. He had spoken with Colleen on this many times, and her resolve had been unswerving. At one point, Russell had snapped and asked why a kind and loving God had done what happened to her, to which she replied that her hardships granted her the ability to meet him. They didn't speak for a week after, and Russell was still not convinced. Yet still, in that world where nothing could be seen or heard, where he had run out of peppy pop songs to sing in his head, and he was sure that no one, save God, if He even existed, could see or hear…he prayed. He prayed for safety of his friends, and his family, even his harpy of an ex-wife. He did not ask for his own salvation, or even his own protection, but rather that if something was up there, they would take care of those he cared about, even if it meant his life. He would have waited for a response, but the blood-curdling shriek ruined whatever spiritual moment he was having.  
It came out of nowhere, cutting through the sonic damper like a dentist's drill in one's ear, shattering everything that had been at once mystical and interesting about the planet of silence. The scream, heard in the dark and impossible to trace, was like a lance through the stomach to everyone who heard it, and everyone did hear it. There were several tense, agonizing moment where no one could do anything but wait for the moons to recede. Russell felt Colleen's hand desperately groping for his, and he held it tight. The scream, it seems, had shaken everyone to the core. Finally, the moons began to depart, and light returned to Vaientaa. Russell saw, but did not hear, monks from all over the room scurry to the far corner. The sound had been shut off again, but he could see several faces in the audience, alien faces, humanoid faces, all contorted into masks of grief that would have looked ridiculous and silly if the Abbot was not lying on the polished marble floor, a knife in his back, black blood spilling onto the tiles.  
The once sumptuous feast turned to lead in Russell's stomach, and ashes in his mouth.

Russell looked to his left. The Doctor was nowhere to be found. He looked to his right, where a terrified Colleen Ciradh gripped his arm like death. All around him were aliens of all shapes, sizes, colours and types of existence milling about in a riotous mass. A large contingency of large green skinned beasts jostled their gelatinous bodies into place to be the first out the door, while a group of tiny sentient beetle creatures scuttled by under the anti-gravity litters that held the green blobs aloft. Ten foot tall behemoths stepped over willowy sprites as a mass panic pushed for the only way out of the room. All around were agonized and terrified faces, and there was no telling how many other strange alien beings were being trampled underfoot. With the sonic damper in place, you couldn't hear them cry for help.  
Russell saw the crush at the door and realized that there was no way Colleen and he would be able to exit any time soon. He looked instead to the far corner of the banquet hall, where several of the monks were still trying to stabilize their leader. Feeling his Hippocratic Oath welling up inside him, Russell resolved to help in any way he could. He grasped Colleen by her narrow wrist and walked away from the bedlam to where the Abbot lay. Immediately, he began apprising the situation: the wound would have been fatal to a human, but there was a firm chance that human physiology would not be an issue here. The blood seemed thick, thicker than human blood, and at the rate he was bleeding out, it had to have been dangerous, no matter what the species. Something major must have been ruptured, but he would have to get inside those black robes to truly find out…  
One of the monks angrily slapped his hand away as he moved to the Abbot's garments. It made several angry movements with its hands that probably meant Russell was not wanted. Russell rummaged about in his trousers and produced his medical identification. Unfortunately, his Earth ID wasn't written on psychic paper, so the monk only gave him a frustrated and quizzical gesture. He tried pointing to the word "Doctor" several times, and to the red cross, but nothing seemed to work. Russell remembered the Doctor mentioning in passing that in the galaxy at large, a hospital was signified by three crescent moons…  
Wait… the Doctor!  
Where had that daft bastard gone?

Vaientaa was a monastery planet, but even monastery planets needed sources of income. The Doctor, still in his immaculate tuxedo, was browsing one of the markets that dotted the planet's surface. Monks stood behind stalls hawking various wares, from fresh-baked hearth bread to treatises published on the nature of God and the universe, to audio recordings of pure, unadulterated and authentic "Vainetaa Silence." The Doctor, however, was no in the mood to shop for loaves of bread or tureens of soup in varying shades of gray. He was looking for the Abbot's killer.  
Something was not right. He had had this feeling before. In all his travels since the Time War, he had been given the ability to tell when the laws of time and space were in flux: when they could be bent, when they could be broken, and when everything needed to return to the status quo. It could have been called a sixth sense, but that would be almost insulting to a Time Lord, whose senses often stretch into the double digits. It was only in the most dire of circumstances that his senses had been shuttered, or put askew… or when the Doctor simply felt like paying them no heed. After all, he was hardly a normal Time Lord, and as such couldn't be expected to always act as such.  
The market was nearly empty today, which made sense, given both the circumstances of the feast and the murder of the Abbot. What few monks that were to be seen were huddled in the corners of their booths, crying silent tears and flagellating themselves in the vain hope that their pain might somehow save their leader.  
The Doctor approached one distraught stall, selling hats, and began to look them up and down. A small monk, obviously a child of the stall-tenders, tottered up to him and tugged a black-gloved hand on the hem of his jacket. The Doctor looked down and smiled, patting the little silent creature on its head, which made the black robe wriggle with delight. He browsed through the hats until he found a flat, old-fashioned porkpie, almost a skimmer, and plopped it lopsidedly on his head. He showed it to the little one, who seemed to appreciate it. The Doctor crouched down with a mysterious look on his face, and reached behind the little monk's to produce a shining silver coin through sleight of hand, delighting the child even further. The parents came to sweep their children away, casting scathing gestures at the Doctor, who merely flipped them the coin and scratched at his scalp under the new hat.  
Where to begin?

Russell and Colleen exited the hall after everyone else. In fact, they were fairly shoved out by angry monks. Left to wander the halls of the monastery alone, they found it particularly awkward. Colleen had always been quiet, but it was now, when they couldn't speak, that Russell wished she would more than ever before. Eventually the white stone walls became supremely boring, so the two found one of the many doors that lead out of the massive structure. Upon opening the heavy wooden door (which Russell would have been happy to hear squeak on its hinges) they found themselves in a massive garden that seemed to go on forever: there seemed to be no floor, but instead a thick carpet of moss and ferns,the walls seemed to be nothing but ivy and creeper and morning glory, and the flowers, trees, bushes and thickets seemed to carry on beyond the realm of human comprehension.  
Had it not been solely in black and white, Russell feared his heart may have burst from the view. Colleen took this as a chance to show some initiative herself, dragging Russell by _his_thin wrists over to a small stone bench under a ashen willow tree. The bench was immaculate, with not a spot of moss on it, obviously by design it was the only thing within eyesight not covered in verdant splendour. The American doctor and the Irish peasant girl sat on the bench and looked out at the beautiful sight, both feeling their hearts pounding in their chests, but not able to hear their beating. Colleen slumped over onto Russell's shoulder, and he felt her exhale peacefully, gently laying her hand near his collarbone. Russell, trying not to jostle his precious charge, reached over and plucked a snow-white rose from a nearby bramble, tucking it securely behind one of Colleen's freckled ears. The black gown, her colorless, yet expressive eyes and tumbling expanse of hair… it was all Russell could do to keep from kissing her. After all, she was partially cybernetic, what could he possibly have to offer her? No, kissing her now would only complicate things, best to leave the tender moment alone.  
Then he started thinking about Billy Joel songs.  
About halfway through the second verse of "And So It Goes," Colleen got tired of waiting for Russell's mental iPod to run out of songs. She rose up, grabbed him by the lapels, and hauled him into her for a simple, yet passionate kiss.

On the other side of the massive monastery, the Doctor had already caused his share of trouble, with no solving of the case in sight. After purchasing the hat, he attempted to buy some chocolate from the next booth over. No one would serve him, so he decided to serve himself. This lead to some more angry gestures, but the chocolate was good so the Doctor took another three pieces and walked off. He munched on them happily, shaking his head in bemusement at the ridiculous actions of the grievers. Really, if the Abbot truly was dead (and the Doctor highly doubted that he was) there was no way mutilating yourself was going to bring him back. No, the Doctor did not believe the Abbot was dead, for the simple reason that no one really seemed to want him dead. Vaientaa was a secluded group of extremists who made good food, but rarely upset anyone. There seemed to be no point in someone coming all the way here just to stuff themselves and stab someone. Unless, of course… someone had a more emotional motive behind the murder…and in that case, how does one get into an emotional relationship with someone who does not speak?  
Apparently, by taking some chocolate. The Doctor's actions had not been appreciated at the stall, and now a rather angry looking alien chocolatier had come barreling out from behind that stall to make him pay the balance, so to speak. He was a large, but not particularly muscular creature, who had a face like a rabbit and ears like a Great Dane, and great, tough fingers that smeared cocoa dust on the Doctor's jacket every time. The Doctor, a little incredulous, brushed the cocoa off his front and handed back the chocolate he hadn't yet eaten. As the cook turned his back, though, the Doctor began pulling faces at him, which (as he could turn his neck 180 degrees) the cook immediately saw and, in a rage, threw the bag of sweets at the Doctor, who swiftly ducked and sent the chocolate sailing into the face of a spindly looking bead merchant across the way. The bead merchant, a spidery looking thing, kicked up its ten legs and began to accost the chocolatier until the two began a fist-fight.  
The Doctor, who had lost his hat while ducking, innocently slunk away to retrieve his chapeau while the fight continued. Oddly enough, one of the beetle creatures had crawled under the porkpie and was now marching it away down a gray cobblestone street, providing the Doctor with more grief as he chased the thing around the market: under tables, around tent poles, upsetting displays, and causing more than one alien merchant to trip and fall into a compromising position with another alien merchant of another gender, leading to more bedlam. Finally, the hat (and the alien) leaped onto a wall and began climbing up into the monastery. The Doctor followed in hot pursuit, but the bug crawled quickly, and the Time Lord got a face full of white brick wall instead. Finally done with the game, the Doctor pointed his sonic screwdriver at the hat, which froze and fell into his outstretched palm, beetle inside. With a look of disdain, the Doctor picked the beetle out of the hat, flicked it into a nearby display of table linens, and did his best to clean the hat out. When he had it cleaned to his liking, he popped the thing back on his head at a jaunty angle, and turned from the wall only to see half the marketplace glaring at him, the source of today's strife…as far as they knew.  
Another hectic chase followed, with the Doctor on point being chased by all sorts of bizarre, otherworldly beasts. He managed to get the spidery bead merchant wrapped around a tent pole with some quick footwork, and the large chocolatier wound up tripping over a banana  
the Doctor found, still fresh, in one of his endless jacket pockets. The fruit of the banana? Smashed into the face of a particularly sour looking resident of Javrax III to aid his escape. Round and round they went: the Doctor ducking, dodging, leaping, falling, rolling, and yet still keeping ahead of the mob, eventually losing them before heading down a particularly dark and foreboding alley. The Doctor gulped, hitched up his trousers, set his porkpie on straight, and headed down, coming face to face with the largest, most muscular monk of Vaientaa he had ever seen. Instead of a flowing robe, he wore a tight, black unitard and an executioner's hood, making him look particularly menacing, but still bearing the mark of Vaientaa. Hearing the mob grow closer, the Doctor tried reasoning with him through signs: the massive monk shook his head severely at every one. Finally, in a desperate move, the Doctor signaled his two eyes by placing his fore and middle finger in front of them. He then pivoted his wrist to claim that he had two eyes. When prompted, the massive monk folded his gigantic arms and sighed. Satisfied enough, the Doctor, with a few bits of flourish, pointed to the monk's eyes, making a similar gesture. The monk, now peeved by the little man, nodded irritably that yes, he did have two eyes, what of it?  
The Doctor responded by poking the monk directly in his eyes, and ducking past him as the mob entered the corridor and tried to enter. The massive monk, in a rage, laid into the mob until not a one was left standing, and the Doctor was scot free, scurrying down the corridor into the very bowels of the monastery, and the heart of the mystery.

The tunnel was dark. with nary a torch on the wall to light the way. The Doctor reached into one of his pockets and pulled out the sonic screwdriver, which lit into a a pocket-torch with a click of his fingers. The catacomb passage seem to go forever downward and forward, until one began to wonder if the Doctor would reach the very center of the silent planet. The blue light shone eerily through the tunnel as the Doctor went on, periodically looking back to make sure he wasn't being silently followed. Thankfully, it looked as if the muscular monk had his hands full with an entire marketful of angry patrons, and no doubt he would be forbidden to enter such a sacred place even if it were to retrieve an intruder.  
Just as planned.  
The Doctor's foot suddenly felt cold, and he threw light onto the floor. His foot had stepped into a small puddle of water, and past this nadir the tunnel began to slope upward. Apparently, they could go no lower. The Doctor shook a few drops off his two-tone spectator shoes and headed upwards, wondering about the seemingly shoddy craftsmanship of this tunnel. Everything else on this planet seemed to be put together without space for a knifeblade between stones, and yet this tunnel seemed put together by amateurs. It wasn't straight in any regard, up or down, right or left, even the ground itself was uneven. He began to wonder just exactly who had put this tunnel together, and whether or not he was on the right path, when he came to a wall that seemed to be made of shifting gray sand.  
The Doctor tried his first option: the sonic screwdriver. The sand wouldn't budge. With a shrug, he tucked the gleaming screwdriver into his breast pocket and adopted a thinking posture: one elbow cradled in one hand, with the previous hand drumming distractedly on his lips. He attempted some of his trademark intellectual babbling, but forgetting this was a silent planet, he eventually shut his mouth into a scowl and put his hands on his hips. He tapped his foot on the uneven stones, but was robbed of the angry tapping sound he had hoped for. Finally, after going through a myriad of options in his subspace pockets (a couple of keys, a rubber chicken, chewing gum, playing the spoons, and even stabbing the wall with a rapier), the rippling sand began to show pockmarks and pinpricks. First one, then several, then what seemed like millions all over the wall, until finally words could be made out in the cascade.  
"You wish to enter?"  
The Doctor gave the wall an exasperated look and nodded sarcastically.  
"To enter, one must answer this riddle:"  
The Doctor cocked an eyebrow to express this new ridiculousness. Surely these sort of things only occured in children's stories!  
"Tell me, you who seeks to enter the inner sanctum of Vaientaa… how do you say 'silence' in your language?"  
The Doctor lowered his eyebrows and attempted a snort. He made a gesture, flicking his fingers in front of his lips and sticking out his tongue.  
"Do not worry. Speak, and I will hear it."  
The Doctor heaved a sigh and rolled his eyes. This had better be worth it, he thought. He crossed his arms and spoke a silent word. There were a few moments before the reply came.  
"We hang liars on Vaientaa, you know," the wall spelled out.  
The Doctor stood firm and expressively mouthed:  
"Try me."  
"Are you him?" the wall asked, "finally, after all this time?"  
The Doctor fumbled for his psychic paper and held it in front of the wall. After a few moments, the wall "spoke" again.  
"It has been a long time…Doctor."  
The Doctor shrugged. Time is relative, after all.  
The sand melted away, grain by grain, until a stone archway was revealed. Beyond the archway was a tiny antechamber, spartan in all things save a simple table and chairs. Three homemade shelves held self-canned foods and a few earthen jugs of water. At the table sat a creature, much like the others of Vaientaa, robed all in black. The Doctor stood and watched for a few moments as the black cloaked figure took drink under his cowl. Near the wine goblet and the bottle (which held the wine, of course) there appeared to be a candle on a simple brass holder… but the flame was red and never wavered. It cast a red sphere in a small radius around the table, and it wasn't until the black cloaked figure spoke that the Doctor realized it must have been a sonic inhibitor.  
"You broke my present, Doctor."  
The voice that came from under the cowl was that of an older gentleman, but not frail, not weary. It was a voice that sounded friendly, paternal, almost… familiar. The Doctor jumped a bit at hearing his first voice since that awful scream. He made to respond autmatically, but checked himself after a few words. He straightened his bowtie and stepped a few paces into the red light, coughing experimentally and delighting in finally hearing sound from his mouth. He had missed it so.  
"A thousand pardons, Abbot…"  
The cowl shot upright as the Doctor grinned.  
"Yes, I know who you are. No one else on this planet would have been able to access that kind of technology," he waggled a finger at the inhibitor, "without serious repercussions. As for the psychic paper…"  
He waved it around a bit and put it back in his pocket.  
"It saved my life, so I hope you don't mind my 'breaking' it."  
"Which life was that, Doctor?" the Abbot replied, his voice seeming to smile.  
"You remember. The one I first met you in. Big ears, leather jacket, tried to act all tough…"  
"Ah yes…a strange accent on that one…"  
"You should talk," the Doctor fired back. What was that accent, anyway? The Abbot exhaled with happiness.  
"It is nice to see you again… friend."  
"Likewise, friend," the Doctor took a few more steps forward and placed a hand on the Abbot's shoulder, "though I wish it could have been under more pleasant circumstances… why fake your own death?"  
"The answer to that…" the Abbot stood up and began to walk within the radius, "is very complicated."  
"I travel in time and…" the Doctor made to follow him, but managed to step out of the radius of the inhibitor. His word "space" was lost to the silence of Vaientaa. With a grimace, he ducked back into the red light, picking up where he left off.  
"Time and space. You couldn't confuse me if you tried."  
"Can't I?" the Abbot pawed at the heel of his cowl, and was tempted, just for a moment, to whisk it off. He thought better.  
"I came to Vaientaa seventy-five years ago," he began, "You met me on my Silver Jubillee, I suppose you could say…"  
"Oh, and what a feast there was!" the Doctor almost giggled at that.  
"I hope you appreciated both your meals within our Great Hall," the Abbot moved back to the table, "Can I offer you a drink? It's a Fanx wine…I know how fond you are of them. Excellent vintage…"  
"What would a monk like you know of wine vintages?"  
"It's 2244 of the Green Aeon, Doctor," the Abbot mentioned and watched the Doctor nearly swallow his tongue, "I've been saving it for this day, the day I finally saw you again in the banquet…and your companions."  
"That wine's priceless!" the Doctor paid the Abbot's secondary comments no heed, "It's almost a crime to drink it! How could you have known…"  
"I had a life, Doctor," the Abbot sat down and caressed the bottle fondly, "before I became a monk of Vaientaa."  
"And decided to encite a bleeding riot at your own anniversary!" the Doctor blustered, "Creatures, citizens of the cosmos are dead above us, does that not bother you?"  
"It is the way of things," the Abbot curled long fingers around the bottle's neck, "You of all people should know that."  
"But it doesn't mean I have to like it!" the Doctor flung his flattened porkpie hat onto the table, noticing its taupe color for the first time, "Why, Abbot, _why?"_  
"Are you sure you won't have any wine?" the Abbot turned to look at him with an obscured face, "Or perhaps, some of that magically warm tea you keep in your ever-deep pockets?"  
The Doctor was flabbergasted.  
"How could you… I know the monks here are vaguely…but…that's so…"  
"Trivial?" the Abbot chuckled, "Amazing. You rail against galactic genocide, yet you are rendered a babbling fool by the most trivial matters."  
The Doctor shut his mouth audibly and reached into his pockets. After a few seconds of rummaging, he pulled a collapsible director's-style chair out of his right pants pocket, unfurled it, and sat down next to the Abbot.  
"I don't have a second cup, Doctor…"  
The Doctor snatched a collapsible one from inside his jacket.  
"As I expected," the Abbot filled the cup with wine, "Always prepared."  
"Yes, I'm just a regular Boy Scout," the Doctor droned, "Now tell me why you faked your death or I'll clout you with that very expensive wine bottle, something I'd rather not do."  
The Abbot laughed this time, a laugh from the guts, a good, long laugh.  
"Oh, I haven't laughed like that in ages! Watching comedies with captions is only so funny, after all."  
"I'm rather fond of Mister Keaton, myself," the Doctor smiled, sipping from his cup and savoring the flavor. The Abbot leaned back in his chair.  
"No longer raging, Doctor?"  
"Well, between this wine," the Doctor smacked his lips, "and the knowledge I have that my frustration only pleases you further…I decided to practice a bit of that old Vaientaa kindness."  
"Oh, now it's no more fun!" the Abbot seemed to pout, before pouring another round, "very well."  
"About time," the Doctor smirked, taking his second glass. The Abbot took a drink and began his tale.  
"I faked my death to shock the people of Vaientaa, and all in attendance. Time, I believe you once told me, is like a bead on a string. Without any outside interference, the bead will stay in its place and nothing will become of it. Should something disastrous happen to it, it will swing wildly to and fro and, depending on the direction of the force, it will move relatively backwards or forwards."  
The Doctor felt he had to interrupt.  
"But I also said that the swaying from left and right cause ridiculous group think and far-reaching reforms that will cripple a society!"  
"Not on Vaientaa, Doctor," the Abbot put down his glass with an audible thunk, "this planet, this world is so dedicated to its rituals that such a shocking event will only move the bead forward on the line, as it is held on a straight course by dogma and belief. This I know, for I have instilled it in my monks. My death will do precisely what I want it to do: with no killer ever found, and no logical path of blame, the monks will instead blame themselves, and strive to reform their ways."  
"You're awfully manipulative for a monk," The Doctor sniggered.  
"I learned from the best," the Abbot sniggered back, "Do you remember, we discussed this back when you visited me, fifty of my years ago?"  
"Sorry," the Doctor pulled a face, "A lot's happened since then."  
"Understandable. And you were so different back then," the Abbot drummed his gangly fingers on the rim of his goblet, "so violent, so angry. Full of the wrath of what you had to do to end that terrible Time War…"  
"I was sknnier, too," the Doctor said sourly, trying to change the subject.  
"But we spoke of stagnancy, Doctor," the Abbot then folded his hands in front of him, "We spoke of the dangers of stagnancy that doomed your race. And we agreed that this collective, the monks at Vaientaa, would soon grow stagnant as well. They would grow preoccupied with their fundraisers and feasts, their marketplaces and money… they would lose sight of their true purpose, that of finding God and the true meaning of the universe!"  
"Good luck," the Doctor scoffed and beckoned for another cup of wine, "I've been farther than anyone in the universe, and I've still got no idea."  
"Your life is loud, Doctor. As it should be. For me, for us, the true pursuit of ultimate knowledge must be carried out in silence, free from distractions and the warped messages that have befallen us here. True silence, the only path to true knowledge."  
"Then you can have it, friend," the Doctor smiled.  
"I plan to," the Abbot replied, "I will be leaving Vaientaa soon, to one of the isolated moons of the Rasz system. There, I will find complete and utter silence and solitude where I can truly contemplate the meaning of life–"  
"The universe, and everything," the Doctor cut him off with a scoff, "been there, read the book. I can't see why anyone would want that…"  
"I made a promise, Doctor," the Abbot's voice was suddenly heavy with emotion, "To my wife, at the end of her days, that I would take up her work, that I would believe, and that I would find the answers. She lived a good, long life…several of them, actually… and it was through her that I was made to believe. There must be something out there, Doctor, because of all the cosmic chances in the universe… I was given her."  
There was a long silence as they both sat and drank. Finally, the Abbot had to ask it.  
"Do you… believe, Doctor?"  
The Doctor looked at him over the rim of his glass.  
"There was a very smart man, once… an Earthling, if you can believe it… who said that the best argument for their being a God was that there comes a time where science cannot understand everything."  
He set the glass down with a wistful, far-off gaze.  
"I feel obligated to concur."  
"It is excellent to hear that, my old friend," the Abbot sighed and leaned back again, "Tell me, do you want another psychic paper?"  
"I'm afraid not," the Doctor scowled, "once word got out I was using it, every nasty fellow in the galaxy started taking psychic training. Thank goodness deadlock seals are expensive, or this would just be a gussied-up penlight."  
He waggled the sonic screwdriver in front of the Abbot and set it down with a huff.  
"I envy you, Abbot, I really do… to think that the monks will be set back on the straight and narrow, to think the psychic paper would work forever… but then again I suppose that's why we always got along. Your idiotic optimism was a nice foil for my…erm…"  
"Rampant pessimism?"  
"I'm old, I'm entitled to it," the Doctor pulled a wry face, "Is there any more wine left?"  
"I'm afraid we've emptied it all. What a pity," the Abbot said with a sigh, "Still, good friends and good memories are the perfect companion for a good wine."  
"I was hoping for a bit of cammenbert, myself," the Doctor said dryly. He stood up from the table and made to shake the Abbot's hand.  
"Well, both my curiosity and my palette have been sated, and I suppose you have a rocket to catch."  
The Abbot stood and shook his hand with those gangly fingers. They seemed almost…human…  
"Indeed, Doctor. I fear I will not see you again–"  
"Oh, never say never," the Doctor chuckled.  
The Abbot drew in a heavy breath that shuddered with emotion. He sighed in a way that suggested he was on the verge of tears.  
"Yes…" the Doctor actually heard him sniff, "Never say never."  
"Are you all right?"  
"Oh, it's just allergies," the Abbot waved a dismissive hand, "All the dust down here, you know."  
"Mm-hmmm," the Doctor cocked an eyebrow, "I'm the same way with aspirin, confidentially. Does beastly things to my system. Make sure you do something about that then, eh?"  
The Doctor waggled a finger in the Abbot's obscured face. The head monk chuckled and nodded.  
"I know my way around a bit of medicine, I'll be all right."  
"See that you do. I'll have to come and visit you, ruin all your silence and fun. I'll search every moon of Rasz til I find you, you know!"  
"I know, I know…" the Abbot's voice was still sad, "Here, let me guide you back to the monastery…the easy way.  
The Abbot pulled one jar (that looked surprisingly like a jar of Branston Pickle) and it clicked in place, letting part of the far wall slide away. The Abbot then pressed the top of the jar, and with a little _pop_ the cascading sand returned to the adjacent arch. The Abbot picked up the sonic inhibitor and lead the Doctor through the secret door into another even smaller room, where an elevator waited.  
"Quite modern for a room of stone and dust," the Doctor mused.  
"Modern for some, commonplace for others," the Abbot lead the Doctor into the elevator, which thankfully only had one button. The Doctor stood inside the box, and the Abbot on the outside, as they said their goodbyes. The Abbot made a theatrical gesture to what was probably his temple with his free hand and said in a mysterious voice.  
"You'll find your companions near the garden on the northeast side of the monastery."  
The Doctor gave the Abbot a skeptical look.  
"Did you… see that?"  
"The Abbot reached inside the elevator and pressed the button, drawing his long arm back before the door could catch it. The Doctor swore he heard the Abbot smile.  
"Why don't you go and see? Goodbye, Doctor."  
"Goodbye, friend."  
The elevator door closed with a gentle _ding_ and, in a few seconds, the Doctor was gone, upwards and onwards. The Abbot stood there until he could hear the whirring machinery no longer, then heaved another heavy sigh. He reached down to the candle shaped sonic inhibitor, allowing himself only two wistful words before relegating himself to silence forevermore.  
"The garden…"  
He turned out the light, and all was black and gray and white…and silent… until the end of his days.

The Doctor found himself in a far corner of the Great Hall of Vaientaa. The scene was ominous now, and silent once again. Where once hundreds of creatures enjoyed the feast and delights, the entire room was now stark, barren, and empty. The Doctor could almost hear the hard soles of his spectators clack on the stone floor as he made the long, long walk from the secret entrance, past the long ebony tables to the two great doors. He found the doors locked from the outside, and attempted to knock. It was only after doing so that he realized the futility of his actions and reached for the sonic screwdriver. Upon opening the doors, however, he found two perturbed monks who had been charged with sealing the only way into, or out of, the Great Hall. The Doctor, looking a bit sheepish, tried to produce another coin magically from behind a guard's ear, but the guard would have none of it. In desperation, the Doctor flicked the coin at the guard, noting with satisfaction that it ricocheted off the first one's head and hit the second before he dashed off down the corridor. The two guard monks gave chase, but thanks to a veritable labyrinth of corridors and hallways, the Doctor made a confusing escape: into this one, around this corner, up a staircase, across a balcony, a quick swing across a chandelier, a slide under a pair of dutch doors, and finally down a lattice. As the Doctor leaped from the makeshift ladder, he noticed that his feet didn't hit the ground as hard. A gray mixture of grass and loam padded his steps comfortably as he passed out of a moss-covered corridor and into the spectacular monochromatic garden. He swept off his flattened porkpie and scratched his head thoughtfully at the scene, wondering just how he had missed this in his previous visits. As he walked through the colorless splendor, he noticed with despair that his black and white shoes had been smudged gray from the thick covering of grass and other plants. With a frustrated sigh, he continued scouring the garden for Colleen and Russell. The days' exploits had been rather tiring, and the Doctor was beginning to yearn for the comforts of his TARDIS…and for the ability to speak. To top it all off, he still couldn't figure out who the mysterious Abbot had been…yet he seemed to know so much about him…and that peculiar, boorish accent…where had he heard it before?  
To his dismay, he found Russell and Colleen, both locked in an embrace that the Doctor considered in particularly bad taste. The two flushed a deep gray as they leaped to their feet: straightening clothes, hair, whatever vegetation seemed the most trampled, as the Doctor tapped his feet sourly. Like two children being caught in the cookie jar, Russell and Colleen bowed their heads and followed the Doctor out of the garden, stealing looks and sharing smiles between them. When they finally reached the TARDIS, the Doctor opened it with speed of purpose and immediately entered into the colored interior. The first appearance of color was shocking to the companions, who had almost gotten used to the silent word of grays. Before entering the TARDIS, Russell dropped to one knee and made one large, grandiose romantic gesture, to which Colleen blushed furiously and waved him off. They both entered the TARDIS, not quite sure how to handle the constant groaning sounds of the TARDIS back in their ears. They saw the Doctor in a corner of the console room, rubbing fastidiously at his shoes with a kerchief, none too pleased.  
"Just my luck," he sighed, "I'm run all over, put through the wringer, and now this!"  
He tossed the kerchief onto the console, and the ship seemed to coo gently in response, as if trying to calm him down.  
"Why so upset, Doctor?" Russell tried out his voice again, surprised at how it sounded after so long.  
"Well, unlike some of us…" the Doctor fixed a fatherly eye on the two, "I was out trying to get to the bottom of this mystery, rather than to the bottom of someone else's…"  
"Doctor!"  
"Sorry, Mr. Garamond," the Doctor brushed some errant moss from his shoulder, "That was rude of me… but I suppose you two had a wonderful time?"  
Colleen blushed furiously again, and Russell took the initiative, holding her close.  
"I'd say we did," he said proudly. His smile fell a bit as he added, "Er…aside from the whole 'murder' thing…what happened there, anyway?"  
The Doctor plopped his tuxedo jacket onto the back of a chair and adjusted his cuffs.  
"Faked the whole thing, it turns out. Heading off to some barren moon for a better religion, or some such rot."  
"Well, that's good to hear," Russell said, running his fingers through Colleen's hair, which was once again a ruddy red, "Although I don't see why he'd like to leave. I thought it was a nice place."  
The Doctor scoffed. Russell placed a little kiss on the top of Colleen's head and humored the moody Gallifreyan.  
"Where to next?"  
The Doctor fiddled with his braces and sighed.  
"I don't really know, actually."  
"Well, can I make a suggestion?" Russell  
"You have the power of speech again, Mr. Garamond," the Doctor began poring over the console controls, "Use it."  
"Well, I'd like to go back to Ireland…you know, where Colleen is from."  
The Doctor fixed him with a quizzical glare.  
"And why would you want to do that?"  
"I'd like to meet her family," Russell squeezed Colleen a little tighter, "Colleen and I…we're going to be married."  
"Oh, are you?" the Doctor flipped a switch moodily, "I hope I'll be invited to the wedding."  
"Of course, Doctor," Colleen piped up, "Don't be silly!"  
"I'm not the one being silly," the Doctor countered, "It's your darling fiancee. Mr. Garamond, do you honestly think that Colleen's family will understand the situation, or that they will even be healthy enough or _alive_ to receive it? I took Ms. Ciradh from a plague, a blight upon her land and people, and from the looks of things I don't know if there was any family left."  
Colleen's good mood crashed. She picked up the skirts of her opulet gown and disappeared into the TARDIS interior, tears welling up in her bright eyes.  
"Now, why'd you go and do that?" Russell asked in a huff, confronting the Doctor.  
"It's just plain honesty, Mr. Garamond," the Doctor didn't take his eyes off the console, "You'll have to master it, you know, being a married man and all."  
"Like you'd know anything about marriage," Russell scoffed. The Doctor looked up with a twinkle in his eye.  
"Don't I?"  
Russell cocked an eyebrow.  
"_You_ were married? To who? To…_what?"_  
"Myself," the Doctor quipped, picking his jacket off the back of the chair and tossing it cavalierly over a shoulder, "A female version of me from another dimension."  
"You can't be serious!"  
"Can't I?"  
Russell sat down near the console with a sigh, a slight smile growing on his features.  
"Well, it'd be the only girl you'd ever be happy with."  
The Doctor stopped momentarily, as if he'd heard something along that line before. He shook away the cobwebs of a thousand year memory and turned to Russell.  
"Well played, Mr. Garamond. Might I suggest," he leaned on the console in front of the gangly Earth surgeon, "You go find you betrothed and invite her to see _your_ family? Certainly they're not all starving on yellow meal. Where did they live again? Illness, Eleanor…"  
"Illinois, Doctor," Russell stood up and looked down on the Strange Man, "And that's a good idea."  
He flicked his fingers at the Doctor's forehead, knocking the flat, tan porkpie back.  
"That hat looks ridiculous, you know."  
The Doctor fumbled to set it back right on his head.  
"Bah, like I'd trust a human to give me fashion advice…and an American, at that!"  
Laughing, Russell made his way to the door leading into the TARDIS, calling over his shoulder.  
"I don't suppose you know some fantastic wedding planet we could hit up?"  
"Not for humans, I'm afraid," the Doctor said back, "Though I'd gladly stay for an Earth wedding, provided you don't take too long."  
"Not likely," Russell said as he opened the door, "I went to Britain to get away from my crazy family."  
And with that, he was gone back inside, leaving the Doctor to slump into the chair Russell had recently vacated.  
"Marriage…marriage between a cyber-girl…and an _American._ This universe still finds ways to surprise me."  
He sat up then, and steepled his fingers, a thought rushing into his head.  
"Yes," he mused, "marriage seems to be all the fuss today, doesn't it? Well, I'd better get out of this tuxedo."  
He made his way to the interior door, muttering as he went that he'd have to get it cleaned. How lovely to hear the sound of his voice again! It took some of the sting away from not knowing the Abbot's face…which he should have, blast it all… perhaps his old age is finally catching up to him…  
As he went to reach for the door, the aperture blew open unexpectedly with a wind that seemed to come from the very inside of the TARDIS itself. The mysterious wind was sufficient enough to blow the tan porkpie off the Doctor's head, and as he turned to look after it, he noticed a strange sight: his old porkpie, the one in chocolate brown, his Christmas present, bouncing merrily down the interior corridor in his direction. As the second hat finally rolled to a stop at his feet, the Doctor picked up it, dusted it off, and slapped it on his head with a smile. He entered the TARDIS interior, chuckling and patting the walls fondly.  
"Oh, all right, all right, if you insist… you sentimental old thing!"


End file.
